Hey, I pulled my oil dipstick today and I say some weird colored material in it. Can someone help me here?

I've been using Mobil 1 for a long time. Never anything else. This oil has about 5,000 miles on it. It was driven about an hour ago.

Its that whitish material...not sure if it can be easily seen.

Thanks.

 

i do oil samples on my semi trucks on a regular basis you can send a sample of the oil into the lab and they can tell you exactly what is in your oil, various levals of different wear metals the condition of the oil any fuel or water dilution ect. you can search blackstone labs and get oil sample kits. most places that do oil changes on big trucks will have test kits as well.

 

Hi,
White material, like milk, in oil is usually because you have water in the oil.
I too only use mobil 1 oil but I personally would not drive the car with water in it. Many years ago when I was a kid I had this happened. I changed my oil and had significantly less white in the oil so I changed it again and possibly even a 3rd time before the oil looked perfectly. I drove the car for a while and after seeing that I had good oil I did yet anther oil change this time putting in Mobil 1. I was lucky that the leak that put the water in the oil pan went away (My car over heated and I guess that coolant somehow got into the oil pan).
I wish you luck,
Steven

 

Thank you. When I pulled out the dipstick, there seemed to be a lot more covering the long, dry part of the stick.

I suspect that what I am pulling out now is a result of scraping the tube when I remove and replace the dipstick.

In any case, an oil change seems to be in order.

 

take a look under the oil filler cap, if you see a mayonnaise type materials you for sure have coolant leaking into your oil. This is likely either a blown head gasket or a cracked head.

 

A couple of old tech ideas:


1. Pour a bit through a paper towel or toilet tissue. Warm is best. The oil will pass through leaving solids behind. if there are any, hopefully few if any. Bits of vbearing material, bad news.


2. Put a quantity in a glass container. Let it set for a spell. The oil will rise to the top and any water might be seen at the bottom.


3. Remove the oil filter and carefully cut it open. examine the filter material fopr bad stuff.


Way back when, I traded my .22 HiStandard automatic pistol for a decrepit 34 Ford 5 window coupe. It had a later engine, a running, but tired 41. Trouble was, it had a cracked block. Not uncommon. A really nutty kid PO thought it fun to push on the starter button with the original engine running. No more crank, teeth gone off the fly wheel. Well another local wheeler and dealer kid offered to "fix" it. An engine swapl
Ergo, the running 41 replaced the no crank 34.


Well, I worked at a service station, I used it as a back up car and sometimes desert racer!!!!When the sump got too full and really milky, I'd change the oil. I used the used oil drum at the station for fairly decent oil. 1000 mile changes in vogue at the time.


Carl

 

Check your coolant level to see if it is where it should be, if low then you have a coolant leak. If it is fine, then numerous short trips of under 30 minutes can cause what you are experiencing. Check under the oil cap and look for a milky substance. It can be an accumulation of moisture and will go away if driven for an hour or more. You need to bring all your fluids up to temp to burn off the moisture. Short trips are not good for any vehicle and we see this a lot in cold weather months.

 

Cap looks good. No evidence of the same stuff.

I have been working on the car this weekend. Short trips and long idles trying to track down a stumbling idle issue (every 32 seconds when warm and in idle).

I'm going to chalk this up to that.

Coolant levels are fine.

Thanks for the insight.

 

Not really 'for sure' at all. Quite often is nothing more than some condensation. Nothing unusual or alarming about seeing this on the inside of filler caps, fuller tubes, etc. especially if the car sees only short distance driving. As mentioned below, a good long drive will usually 'fix' the problem!

Cheers
DD

 

+1.

Go for a good long drive to see if the water disappears, if that's what it is.

 

Vee,

I endorse all the comments re emulsification of the condensation in the engine, particularly if coolant levels all ok.

The AJ6 engine is a bit prone to doing this, less so on the AJ16 but definitely not an uncommon problem. If so, very likely you can just cure it with some good drives and no need to change oil.

Paul

 

Great thread, thanks for sharing your data.

 

I only use amsoil in my jag and you can feel the horsepower difference each time i get a new oil change using this oil.Couldn't feel any difference using mobil 1 and castrol oil and I guess that means it's bad oil to use

 

Really?
not sure how new engine oil increases apparent horsepower in any measureable way?
I used Mobil 1 for umpteen years in my Saabs. Never had a concern. If oil X, Y, or Z all meets the same specs I would not think you would see any difference in engine wear etc. In practice.

 

Barry,

If you consistently use this amsoil oil, and you can feel a horsepower difference on each change, surely that seems to mean that the amsoil must have significantly degraded and broken down by the time of each change? That's worrying as most modern synthetic oils are capable of significant mileages before breaking down. That seems to question the life capability of the amsoil oil, doesn't it?

I tend to use Castrol 10w-40 in my 4 litre and I've never noticed a horsepower difference after a change, but then I never let it go past 3000 miles between changes so it's still pretty clean when it comes out.

Paul